Proverbs of Heck (24)

The soul of a two year old flies like an arrow.
Make a mistake and the mice inside the walls
will laugh. Even monkeys fall from the sky.
What is past is worth a thousand gold pieces.
A frog in a well does Buddha very well.
The clever hawk is a flower. If you don't
enter the tiger's den, it will be your master.
Pride is a blessing on the back of an ass.
The nail that sticks out might as well dance.
The pebble in the brook is always the stronger.
Silence surpasses the winds, the waves, and chance.
Wisdom and virtue get drunk and fight; take up
your hat and wish them good night. The tongue is
an unskilled physician. The mouth is a door in the wind.

Proverbs of Heck (23)

Chop wood, carry water, watch your step. [. . . the rest has gone missing]

A Golden Rule

Punishment for kings; justice for the rest of us.

Proverbs of Heck (22)

The Queen of Hearts is a humorous soul;
the King of Hearts, a restless, hungry one.
The Jack just sits there looking handsome and dumb.
Every home is a house of cards: slam
the door and it collapses. Every door
slams eventually. I have nothing to say
and I'm no John Cage, so my silences are
especially awkward and dumb. Talking to plants
is like talking to God, except they're really there.
As taking care of animals is tending
to your soul, taking care of plants is fucking
with your mind. Bite an apple, taste the wealth.
Pad. Having something to say and not
being able to say it, that is Hell.

Training Camp Time

You have to build your roster fifty-three deep.
You have to make plays on both sides of the ball.
Stick to your game plan and throw it out
the window. You have to make adjustments.
You just have to go out and execute
and do the things you get paid to do.
You have to establish the running game and stop
the big play. You have to open up the playbook
to keep the defense on their heels. You have to
air it out to stretch the field. You have
to have a couple of guys like that on your team:
guys who bring their lunch pail to work
every day ready to run into a brick wall.
You have to finish your blocks and fight for
the extra yards. You have to be quick off
the ball. You have to get penetration.
It's a game of inches. It helps when you have
an eternity to throw. You can't cough it
up like that. You want to play the game
on their side of the field. You just can't turn it over.

What the Heck?

What is the omniscience of God again?
What is the oldest form of prayer? Why
break everything down? Under what circumstances
must Muhammad go to the mountain? But you could
comb your hair with a balloon, couldn't you?
What does it mean to pass the breathalyzer?
Why not an illegitimate masterpiece?
Forget love, what's the schizophrenia gene
got to do with it? Will you marry me, bitch?
Why is goodness such an awkward word?
Why is Lord Byron swimming the Hellespont
like passing a needle through the eye of a camel?
Why bother to jot things down? If you have to crawl
inside the octopus mind anyway wouldn't it
be better to be backed by an ideology
than to stick your fingers where they don't belong?

A Sociology of Games

      after Edward Dorn

In soccer
when you do something good
one of the opposing team's fans
stabs one of your fans.

In american football
one of the opposing team's fans
stabs one of your fans
because he looked at him funny.

At the Hasty Poets Conference

I write hastily or not at all. I let the roots
dangle all over the place. I stop
to think and think so hard
I push my ballpoint pen into my thigh
without realizing it until I
take it out to start my high-sheen, low-cost
prose. Oh well, I go and on I go
words like carrots, dirty, frayed—no time
to spray them all around. The wood I cut
welcomes knots and bumps and how about's.
I'm a good will hunting terrier
who needs something to chase, rough
rough. I am afeared, spring storms
dangling steeple, walking talking do-nothing.

Proverbs of Heck (21)

The first thing to do to get through the door
is open it. Folk wisdom is the dipping sauce
for the shrimp of our wants. Don't close the window
on your fingers. When hot water pipes knock
people listen, until they're used to it,
then they stop. The body is a rocket ship
piloted by a Bonobo. “Uh oh”
is code for “Come here and kiss me.” The light
at the end of the tunnel, as they say at work,
is a train, but what's interesting is that
it sounds more like a noisy vacuum cleaner.
First thought, best thought, but words written in haste,
such as these, are probably not worth reading.
So I'm not going to finish this. You are.

Vaughn to Dash

Yellow is the color of sun.

Yellow is the color you can use.

What do you want that's yellow?

I'll draw.

Proverbs of Heck (20)

Shadows across the window mean something
is moving. Look away from danger to see
it does no good. The barking dogs make fine
alarms, but sleeping cats are less annoying.
I'd rather be ringmaster for a circus
of fleas than be the lord of the flies. Better
to die in the driver's seat, and with no one
you love in the passenger seat beside you,
than to die at home watching Rusty Wallace.
Headlights lead and the steering wheel follows.
Don't press the gas pedal with your left foot
unless your right one is paralyzed or lost.
From darkness to fire's an amazing leap.
Put down the light and turn yourself in to sleep.

Proverbs of Heck (19)

One person's joy is another's disease.
Cover your mouth when you cough in this world.
You gotta believe: there's gold in your sneeze.
Swallow a clam and you swallow a pearl.
Thorns are like horns right down to the T's.
Life is a desert and death its mirage.
Some folks climb mountains, others climb trees.
One person's trash is another's garbage.
The day is a bouquet of razors to seize:
it bloodies your hand, but is worth it for sure.
The night, that coquette, is a twittering tease.
Love can speak clearly through a mouthful of fur.
The one who resents you always says please.
The one who torments you says it's a breeze.

The Leprechaun-Eating Ogre's Song

I'm a leprechaun-eater.
I eat leprechauns.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
and all night long.

I eat them in their hats.
I eat them in their boots
I eat their long red beards
and each shiny little tooth.

I eat them by themselves
or in belt-buckle stew.
They go great with cloverade
or with rain water dew.

I'm a leprechaun-eater.
I eat leprechauns.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
and all night long.

I eat them in the rain.
I eat them in the sun.
I eat them in their caves
with their gold on a bun.

I eat them like ice cream
on sweetened shamrock cones.
I savor every bit of
their lucky rainbow bones.

I'm a leprechaun-eater.
I eat leprechauns.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
and all night long.

I eat them any season.
I eat them hot or cold.
I eat them for no reason.
I eat them young and old.

I eat them when I'm smiling.
I eat them when I'm down.
I eat them when I'm upset
that they treat me like a clown!

I'm a leprechaun-eater.
I eat leprechauns.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
and all night long.

Buzz Buzz

What if we look for a bee? (Buzz buzz.)
What if we look for a fly? (Buzz buzz.)
What if we catch one? What if we try
to make him go bye bye?

A bee by the window,
a fly by the door,
one by the ceiling,
and one by the floor.

What if we look for a bee? (Buzz buzz.)
What if we look for a fly? (Buzz buzz.)
What if we catch one? What if we try
to make him go bye bye?

A bee by the wall
bouncing with some force,
a fly in the corner
careening back and forth

What if we look for a bee? (Buzz buzz.)
What if we look for a fly? (Buzz buzz.)
What if we catch one? What if we try
to make him go bye bye?

Buzzing by our ears,
a fly or a bee?
Shoe him to the window,
maybe he'll go free.

The Old Man and the Sea

Don't despise me
for my mistakes,
poet of the sea
and sky high stakes,

despise me for
the way I keep
my boat near shore
to troll the deep.

Proverbs of Heck (18)

The will of the people seesaws up and down;
a fallen leaf will change its collective mind.
The light of the moon is borrowed from the sun.
Stargazing is an easy way to love
the world; fighting for social justice, not
so much. Subtlety is sinewy, swaying
as if by eyes. Bluntness blows its kisses
across a crowded room. How do you like
me now? The innocent wonders aloud.
Nobody speaking, nobody addressed.
The light of the sun is borrowed by the moon.
Stick your hand in with the electric eel
and you will feel “all sorts of things.” An itch
that can't be scratched is the will of the people.

Thirteen Things I Did Today

Started Invisible
Spat in the sink
Drove like an ass

Vetted app files
Requested finals
Took two ibuprofen twice

Ate at my desk
and laughed at the Dilbert
where his boss is a ficus

Cleared the table
Washed a glass
Scooped out dessert

Read to Dash
Tucked in Vaughn
Left Invisible at work

Remedy

You probably already need to burn
more than you know
and know that in order to lose
you need to consume

Stand while talking on the phone
burn while reading the paper
Pacing's an even better desk
while you work the same results

Reach for the pass on the getting used
Move black around in coffee
and stimulate green tea
phasing out complex omnivorous counterparts

It's the hours makes the peppers hot
Drink ice your body in a day
That coffee and tea mentioned before
there's such a thing as drastic

Shivering burns glasses of loss
run away with this idea
if you get yourself sick
overboard the weight you can burn your body

One for the Road Break Room

You can’t drink water from an empty cup.

Proverbs of Heck (17)

Be mindful of the space you occupy
and be careful who you quote. Even genius
requires context. The heart of a fool is gold;
the heart of wisdom's more like crumpled paper.
Hope is the resin of time; roll it up into
a ball and smoke it. You can light a candle
to find your way when the power is out
or to enjoy the scent while you take a bath
or just to melt the wax because you're bored,
fourteen, and don't have any beer or pot.
Poor Richard's Almanack makes a hell of
a school. Reading to children is righteousness;
reading to adults is close to self-importance.
Reading alone is electric company.

Proverbs of Heck (16)

The hand that rocks the cradle is arbitrary.
The tigers and lambs, arbitrary. The dogs
and fires, the eggs and goats, arbitrary.
A stitch in time saves something arbitrary.
The deer crossing the road is arbitrary.
The point size and leading is arbitrary.
The right key, the right tempo, the right words,
arbitrary, though music has charms to soothe
the arbitrary. What a Pisces is is arbitrary.
A three-legged dog is the arbitrariness
of God. The road by the lake is arbitrary,
but the desires that draw the insects there
are not quite. The lamp in the lighthouse
is arbitrary — but sailing toward it is not.

Proverbs of Heck (15)

In the proverbial tree, carve your name
and the name of someone you love: that's the start
of a poem but also the start of forgetting.
The present is lost in the anthology
of the future. Time is a reoccurring theme
just look at the clock. Every damn poem's the same.
The eight-legged mind of the octopus knows:
no one is healthy, no one is wealthy,
and almost no one is wise. It's a matter
of perspective: A stitch in the eye stings like hell.
Everything else is arbitrary. The bus
arrives on time or it doesn't. You make it
to work on time or you don't. You climb the tree
you thought you couldn't — only to fall out.

Dash's List of What He Loves

Trains
Trucks

Mommy
Daddy
Vaughny
Sharma

Everybody in the world

Wet floor signs

Proverbs of Heck (14)

You can't swat a fly with a belief system
unless it's Brechtian. Don't stick your fingers
in a bull's nostrils unless you want to fly.
You don't grab a rose by its thorns unless
you're like a vampire temptress or something.
Every man has sheep's clothing in his closet.
The road of excess is strewn with animal
metaphors but so is the palace of wisdom.
The car-chasing dog is the spirit of opposition;
those big black pretzels were his legs.
When sea-nymphs hourly ring my bell: ding-dong,
heaven — oh, knell? — then make it: ding-dong, hell.
Sing about whiskey, sing about glue. It will
cohere. But only if most of it rings true.

The Digital Compositor’s Secret Handbook

Be mindful of the baseline grid: set it up
but don’t lock to it. In the digital age
letterspacing’s OK: what readers can’t see
won’t distract them. Ligatures are like friends:
kids, too, will understand them. Feathering best
be saved for newsletters and mass markets,
but doing it most judiciously in a trade
such as The Essential Guide to Prescription Drugs
is not all bad so long as it’s inconspicuous.
A clean coded document should account
for ellipses, em dashes, the spacing between
single and double quotes, accents, diacritics,
and art callouts. To lose a page in a tight
chapter in order to make a signature—
don’t use scaling even then—use stealth
kerning and justification, and don't share what you've done.

Proverbs of Heck (13)

Shower in the morning, eat throughout the day,
have fun at night. The routine has a mind of its own.
Ray DiPalma knows when it's dark o'clock
as most of us unconsciously do, only
we don't know what happened to the green football.
Either it was in the basket Mom brought
to Goodwill or we left it out in the street —
or the dog ate it. Tomorrow is the day
before yesterday, deal with it. Don't repress
the songs you're too embarrassed to sing.
The laundry is routine; mowing the grass,
ritual. Division of labor has no past.
To get out of a routine, you have to crawl inside
its octopus mind and disconnect the red wire.

Proverbs of Heck (12)

It’s best to start off without any words.
Imaginary conflict is good for the soul.
To rock and roll is to roll back time like prices.
Too many proverbs make thought disappear
but the poem is not an aphrodisiac.
If I believed in the soul I could believe
in myself, or at least I could get up
and dance. The poem progresses through conflict.
Who could dance in a room full of enemies?
A poet, perhaps, or any obstinate ass.
Here’s a proverb: “Hey, how you doin’?” “Fine.”
The poet’s only hope is the objectivity
of time? Sucker! The shit-eating grin
that won’t disappear will be hitting that shit now.

Audience

Candles that smell like fictional scents
straight out of Willy Wonka
burn on the counter
in the house of no repairs.

Bright green leaves of the maple
outside, bright green eyes
peering over a christmas coffee mug
filled with green tea.

There's no money in this shade —
no dollar dollar —
no time between the turning of pages
and reading For Love aloud.

Obscure jottings down
later on, of what we came
to see. Broken off

This audience of one is fine by me.

Proverbs of Heck (11)

A crow in the north is a crow in the south.
A hand in the pocket is a hand in the pants.
A dog on a leash is a dog among men.
The day that I met you is the day that I died.
Asleep on the wing is asleep in the sky.
A hand on the head is a hand put to waste.
To waste today is to waste your past.
To pass the time is to pass nothing by.
A coward in the morning is a coward at night.
A lion in the home is a mouse in the street.
The leash on a dog is a leash from god.
The call from the muse, a call to jot things down.
The nothing that's not there is the nothing that is
as a call on the phone is a call and that's all.

Some Assemblage Required

Vaughn's aluminum-foil dolphin floating,
bloated, in a sea of bric-a-brac—wood screws,
bottle caps, bubble wrap, plastic bits
of straw, blue pebbles, tiny golden bells,
and strips of black felt—all of a piece
hovering on the yellow wall to my right
which isn't so much an important detail
as a true one clamoring to mean something—
the way detritus appears in a hundred poems
a year but paying bills is all but absent—
the shiny dolphin that could be a dull whale,
could be the bright moon hooked on a dark cloud,
could be more than fodder for another poem
to be saved to my “09 chunks” folder.

Proverbs of Heck (10)

The rich man says with the technology now
it's easy to pass a camel through the eye
of a needle, almost as easy as jerry-rigging
a surprise at every turn. And anyway,
it's easier for special effects to gain heaven
than for a tosser to disavow the same
thing every year for ten years running.
O smoke and mirrors, no one understands
the pathetic fallacy the way you do.
To hell with gold-medalist Michael Phelps,
I'm Lord Byron swimming the Hellespont!
In the old days bridges could be quickly destroyed
by nature. The Hellespont is love: Xerxes
will cross us, with or without our consent.

Spotlight Poet

It's so cool that you've been named the Spotlight Poet for December! I saw the announcement and I love where they quoted that one critic (or was he another poet?) who said that your latest book “reads like the paronymous works of the next Hieronymus Bosch.” What does that mean anyway? Paronymous? And wasn't Bosch a painter? Oh well, who cares?!? You're it! I can't wait to go to your reading. Let me know when it is, so I can make sure to get a ticket before it's all sold out! Wow, huh?!?

Hugs and kisses,
Mom

Proverbs of Heck (9)

You don't need a cane to walk on water
but you need a rock to skip across a lake.
Thundering God who's mad as Hell at me
for not taking Your Word like I was taught
in school, You ain't an important question,
goodness is. Thunder means shut down; lightning,
shut down now. But I believe in the Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse: they kick ass! :-P
Some bridges are just meant to look pretty.
Anonymity's nice but walking on water's
the way to go. Here comes the rain again
like a pop song that's had too much airplay—
you know the words, bad grammar and all,
so half of you sings what the other despises.

Proverbs of Heck (8)

The clock's just there to pass the time. It's like
a graphic novel or a walk in circles in the park.
A nervous stomach leads to alone time
not in the park but in the bathroom. My park,
my bathroom, my constant looking at the clock,
that minimalist masterpiece. The ordinary artist
desires something like the schizophrenia gene
to be something extraordinary; the schizotypal artist
just wants to get through the day in an ordinary way
without hearing voices or being confronted
by the demons walking step for step behind them
[sic]. Here's a proverb: No one is waiting on
these words. That's what makes them terrible,
O language master, that's what makes them mine. :-)

Things To Do When the Good Demon Departs

after Robert Herrick

Check blogs.
Email friends.
Brush teeth.
Watch Lost.

Pet cat.
Check her dish.
Head upstairs.
Hear rain.

Hear sirens.
Not sleep.
Head downstairs.
Pick up toys.

Turn on light.
Sit back down.
Move mouse.
Make list.

Proverbs of Heck (7)

The beast that rules the forest rules the mind.
The mind is darker than any forest or night.
Nighttime comes but once a day, meaning duh.
Meaning passes the breathalyzer test;
significance won't even pull over.
Over is grace; under, a laugh in the face.
Face things backwards: other is an I, too.
I is a heteronym as much as you.
You can't make bricks from a sow's ear and you
can't make an omelette out of stone. Can you?
You can breakdance in your past but not your future.
The future cooks separately for each of us.
Sometimes it takes longer to make shit up
than to complete a legitimate masterpiece.

A Calling

I came to you with a tire iron in my trembling hands
so you could use it. So swing away.
I didn't want this face to begin with.
It's all yours now. Make art of it. Please.

G Reader

Buy a Book, Save a Bookstore
Is This What Turning Fifty Brings?
Hard to be an International Festival When . . .

Beedrop Says
Fantasy Anti-Homerism
Burned Erasers

Apropos . . .
Hart Crane
Sucka MCs Should Call Me Sometime

Do Ewoks Celebrate Life Day?
Dreaming in the Language of Lake Placid
Doing Lions in a Garden

The Fragrance of Connecticut
Through the Palace Wall
Stoned Love

Proverbs of Heck (6)

The heckler is a comedian with a soul
but no gravitas. To heckle is to seize the day,
spit in its face, and taste a bit of the tree
of knowledge of good and evil. It's OK
if you're researching, say, a guide to the works
of William Blake. But don't expect to comb
your hair with a balloon even though you might
be able to. You can't play rock and roll
with a hecklephone. Or you can, but only if
you're broken and got the fucking attitude.
When you wake from a nightmare with a hand
between your thighs, that's the work of Hecate.
True love is composed in trochaic hectometer,
hectic, calm, and crawling with survivalist gung-ho.

Proverbs of Heck (5)

A chain is only as strong as what you chain
with it. When it rains, a little rain must fall.
The pen rules the world. Good talk makes waste.
The way to a man's heart is to skin a cat.
Nothing is certain till you come to it
but then there's more than one way to arrive.
The proof is in the eye of the beholder.
It's the early bird that makes the most noise.
Better to remain silent and be louder
than words than curse the darkness after the horse
has bolted. Lightning never strikes without
breaking eggs. Still waters just before the dawn
are soon parted like an old fool. In the kingdom
of the blind, Muhammad must go to the mountain.

Proverbs of Heck (4)

The road by the lake leads you back to work.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
Blake wrote that, but here I've given it to you
so you can write it, too. The cut worm forgives
the plow. Like that. The grass unmowed will grow
to bring more bugs and animals. Eventually
the neighbors will complain. No law is made
of stone, nor any love. It's easier to add
smaller numbers, so break everything down.
Hope is the high school of mortality.
College is all about fucking. Make love
before you head to work. Make tea for two
in the breakroom of your desires. Pour
the burning water down your pants and cry.

1 after 1

The lights go on. The cat sneaks out.
You walk in and the rain on the roof
feels about right. The answering
machine hurls 1 after 1 your way
as if you cared about the truth
as much as the breathtaking hum.
What's the meaning of peruse again?
To examine or consider with care;
To read completely; To look over casually;
To go from place to place; To wander
with intent to remember. You take
your work home with you. You kick off
your shoes. You wonder about the heat
on the floor coming form the fridge.
You will want to set aside time to peruse
the report before making a decision.

Bow Down and Die

So cool and sophisticated we didn't know
what to do, so we cut up sentences,
images, words, and scattered them
like Osiris, our father, over the stone
and bone of blank digital pages,
when all along all we wanted was
to make a song people wanted to sing.

Proverbs of Heck (3)

The eagle's eye is the arrogance of God.
If that ain't Freedom, digital cable is.
Pride is hate's condom and ignorance its
pornography. The fox that wanders too far
into the suburbs gets taken away or shot.
The slugs of worry are heavier than the ants
of adventure and not as accomplished
but maybe more prepared. When you see
a ladybug waddling on your window sill
look up: there's likely to be more. Pretend
to be awake when you are sleeping not
when you're supposed to be awake. Violence
is the oldest form of prayer, except for sex.
The cat licks herself clean and so should we.

Proverbs of Heck (2)

In a rainy season, keep an umbrella in
your car. When it's not that far away, drive to
the next town where the gas is cheaper. Search
for hotspots in the cafes of the dead
or the long ago compromised. The active adult,
alone in his community, has no time
for recounting the crimes of the state. Go ahead.
Observe the road side, never mind the road.
The Basset Hound's sadness is the omniscience of God.
Queen Anne's Lace does fine untied in the rain,
the Peonies not so much. Sloth is the suit
and tie of bliss. The human soul, a slave
master's whip. Wisdom is waiting for us
downstairs in the ranch without a basement.

On the Importance of Public Funding for the Arts

Like Emily Dickinson
the first girl I loved would
take my smile and slap it around
then hold it in her hands

and shake it three or four times to feel—
as if for years—its heft
before it grew into something
hard as a slave's driven hymn to God.

The Dragon of an Ordinary Family

The Dragon of an Ordinary Family is a children's book published in 1969 about a father who won't buy his children a pet. His wife calls him a fuddy-duddy which prompts him to return to the pet store where he notices a baby Dragon on sale for fifty cents, which he buys and brings home and is such a great hit his wife tells him he's no fuddy-duddy and all of the neighbors marvel at his savvy purchase. But eventually the Dragon grows too big for the house and the yard and the neighbors complain and the Mayor tells the family they must get rid of the Dragon, sell him to a zoo or a circus or Hollywood. The Dragon speaks for the first time and tells them it's true, he has grown too big, he should leave and go to the Isle of Magic, the place where Dragons are supposed to be, but he can take them there for the Christmas holiday. So the family goes with him and spends a couple of weeks there seeing the universe in grains of sand or rolled into balls of dough. The Dragon presents the father with a hookah and the father takes it to be the heavy wonderful octopus of time. Farewells are said and tears are shed because they know there can be no next time. The family returns home and the father goes out to protest the war, where he meets a cheetah and makes a score. The Dragon lingers in the father's mind until it becomes a monkey with its legs around his waist, paws on his shoulders, and tongue in his ear. His ordinary family can't save him. He lives the rest of his life out on the streets telling himself stories about the Dragon he found once upon a time in his fuddy-duddy past.

Proverbs of Heck

The deer crosses the road to where she has to go.
Many times the radio with nothing on
is preferred to the silence of road noise, etc.
The small hairs of our faces inevitably end up
in our food and in our mouths, the blank spaces
of the everyday. There are those in the world
who have studied moon dust and those who read about it
in the newspapers that remain. The signs of the Zodiac
are fun to look at with young children who want to know
why, for instance, Pisces consists of two fish, or what
exactly a Virgo is. On the drive home, it's clear:
you never pass the same deer twice, or if you do
you have no idea. The morning breaks like a kneecap.
Yesterday's thoughts disappear like our faces' little hairs.

What I Know About My Mémé

She was born in or around Québec in 1897.

She spoke English as a second language long before it was a concentration and when any of my friends would meet her they couldn't understand a word she said.

Her first husband, last name Juneau, was so bad she cut him out of what few pictures she had of her and him together.

She and Mr. Juneau adopted Agnes Wyman who would become my grandmother and go on to vouch that her adoptive father was not a nice man.

Eventually she married Robert Jones who I have no memories of, only a few pictures, my mother's stories, and one dream from when I was very young in which I find him dead in the bathroom of his hospital room (he died in the bathroom of his hospital room).

She and Robert Jones adopted Agnes's daughters Bonita and Anita and renamed them Marie and Alice, the latter of whom would become my mother.

They lived on a floor of a multi-family home on Washington Hill in Waterbury, Connecticut.

They survived the flood of '55 during which they saw people stranded on rooftops on the streets below.

As one half of Ma and Pa she forbid my Aunt Marie to go to college; my mother was allowed to attend nursing school because she was going to go one way or the other.

For a short time not too long after I was born in '73 my mother and father and I lived with Mémé and Grampa Jones in their small ranch-style home on Frost Road.

After Grampa Jones died and my parents divorced, Mémé suffered a stroke which paralyzed her left side.

She lived the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

She loved Lucille Ball.

She watched The Carol Burnett Show, I Dream of Jeanie, The Price Is Right, Wheel of Fortune, and General Hospital.

She taught me how to play solitaire and concentration, which she called memory.

She kept a pin cushion in her bedroom.

She loved Social Tea cookies and bread dipped in maple syrup.

No christmas tree ever looked as good as the christmas tree in her living room.

She had the best pillows there, too, including a black velvet one from Kansas City with Arrowhead Stadium on one side and Royals Stadium with its glittering fountains on the other.

She always wore an apron and a shawl.

She had to let my mother bathe her sometimes.

Once, some teenagers broke into her house, while she was there, and stole her TV.

In 1985, after my mother had remarried and we moved into our own house for the first time since I was two or three, Mémé sold her place on Frost Road and moved in with us on Williamson Drive.

She couldn't help spilling crumbs on herself which Corky our golden labrador-bassethound mix happily lapped up.

She taught me how to make crêpes, which I've long since forgotten.

On Saturday mornings before it was time to go to my dad's I went to her room and we watched wrestling together; sometimes I got there early and we watched Roller Derby first.

Her favorite wrestler was Rick Martel, the sharp-looking Canadian-born AWA champion and one of the good guys.

She died in 1987 in the middle of the night in the room beneath mine on the day the Challenger space shuttle blew up.

Later that year my mother asked me to swear on Mémé's grave that I wasn't the author of a nasty letter written to a girl in our neighborhood, and I did.

Five Easy Pieces

Five poems (though "From a Transubstantiation" is excerpted from a longer piece) set to music and sound effects. These links are to the mp3 files:

Tag

On Meeting Charles Wright

What Whole? What Sum? What Parts?

From a Transubstantiation

Light Dies in the Eyes

Ten Things I Do Every Day

after Ted Berrigan

wake up
shower
eat Heart to Heart
play music
drink tea

smile (almost)
fear death
wipe ass
say Hey
eat bran flakes

read something
like the news
hate the news
hug or kiss
wife and kids

lie to myself
spit in the sink
blink
breathe
& rub my eyes

Things To Do In New York City (Cool Upright Remix)

Link (updated to mp3): Things To Do In New York City (Cool Upright Remix).

Ingredients:
1. Ted Berrigan recorded in 1973 reading his poem “Things To Do In New York (City).”
2. The “Cool Upright 02” bass loop in GarageBand.
3. Various clips from dobroide's City Noise audio pack.
4. A modest drum track I laid down.